GameStart! Year 2: A Modern Fairytale

Chosen Printmaking Theme:

A Modern Fairytale

Why have I chosen this theme?

I have chosen this theme because I love stories, especially fairytales. I'm also very inspired by Taiwanese Artist Jimmy Liao (幾米)

Jimmy is an illustrator as well as a picture book writer that uses paintings and artworks to tell stories in the form of a picture book.
He also have some of his work made into textile wallpapers for train stations in Taiwan as well as his very own museum.



Most of Jimmy's work are surreal and has references to famous artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Rene Magritte. I find his work very interesting as he has proven with his painting-turned picture book that Art is a powerful communication tool.


Alike jimmy, I would like to tell stories with my work and with the theme "A Modern Fairytale" I want to prove that fairytales does not exist solely in storybooks and that "fairytale" is something that we; as living beings can experience and live.
In my works, I used the memory of places I've been with a childhood friend that means a lot to me and surrealize the space with my thoughts and feelings at that point in time; breathing life to places like common train stations and fast food restaurants.
The works are also in time-sequence, showing the distance yet unfathomable closeness in our 10 years of friendship.

In future, I will want to hear about the life story of different people and portray their feelings and emotions in my work, who knows? Those things that we keep in our minds, things that we choose not to openly share, be it sadness or happiness, might just be relatable and helpful to others.

Ultimately, I believe people, not just artists, can inspire many.

Reflections: Battle Royale

I find BattleRoyale an interesting movie but i have my doubts that it will ever happen in real life. I find it interesting as the idea to bring an entire class to a island and to only allow one survivor at the end of the event is totally insane. At the start i was already wondering who will be the ultimate survivor as the male lead is played by Tatsuya Fujiwara, the same man that played Light Yagami(self proclaimed god) in my favourite movie, DeathNote. And he lost to righteousness in the end.

If i was put in this situation:
I will never allow Kitano(the main antagonist) to take control of my life. I'll rebel and help my friends to escape. Even if we can't, i'll have died with no regrets because i know that i have fought for the lives of myself and my friends instead of sitting around waiting to die or worst, taking the lives of my friends. I believe the greatest gift on Earth is life and no one, including oneself have the right to take it away. The plan would also be to launch an cyber attack on the event organiser's base, crippling their system to remove the explosive necklaces. After that we'll plan our escapes on boats leaving at 4 different locations from the island so even if the military catch up with one of the groups and gun them down, i dont think they will expect us to split hence increasing the chance of higher survivors.

If i had to make a choice on who to shoot in our class:
It would definately be Raymond because firstly, he is a guy, i dont shoot women, kids and the elderly. Secondly, he said that he would kill and do whatever it takes to stay alive[i guess most people would, but if sacrificing mine could save 100 others why not right?] so even if i want to work together with him i dont think i can completely trust him. Lastly, i didnt have a choice, i had to shoot someone.

Who is the one person that i will save:
I trust the guys to save themself so i'll save Angel. Firstly, shes probablt the one that cares the most about me in class. Secondly, shes so fun loving and loves to laugh so how can she die? lastly, i know i can trust her with lives of myself and others.

Breaking Boundaries

This week, i learnt about lateral thinking and about a man named Edward De Bono who invented it.
Edward De Bono was born in 19 May 1933. Other than originating the term lateral thinking, he is also a maltese physician, psychologist, author, inventor and consultant.
Creativity and Lateral thinking: To Edward De Bono, Creativity can be taught and easily applied, whereas Lateral thinking is the ability for one self to think out of the box and solve problems with solutions far from the norm which can only be achieved by naturally creative people.
ultimately lateral thinking is a term where people sees common problems in a different light and solve them creatively.

Class Assignment: Mindmaps

A 2x10 on the above sculpture:
1) Totems   1) Still
2) Shapes   2) Mysterious
3) Palletes   3) Evil
4) Wood   4) Supernatural
5) Frames   5) Emotional
6) Band   6) Musical
7) Squares   7) Performance
8) Boards   8) Solid
9) Sticks   9) Heavy
10) Statue   10) Unique

The Singapore Night Fest 2016

An installation i saw infront of the Cathay building. I find this piece very eye catching as it made use of neon lights and ropes as its primary medium. Being inside the installation, i feel very inspired by the different colours round me but confuse at the same time as the colours around me are bright and very aggresive.

An installation fired upon the singapore art museum(SAM). I like this piece the most as it depicts life in the sea, ocean creatures moving freely on the walls of the musuem. I find the idea very interesting because it uses lights to represent the ocean creatures that can never experiece life outside the water swimming freely on the walls not just as reprisented creatures but as an artform.

An Installation placed upon the National Museum of Singapore(NSM). It depicts human figures jumping around the walls of the museum by using LED lights. I feel that this work has really portrayed a strong sense of movement.

Picture of the week[Week 5]

Brought Angel and Adam to Heart Of God Church this week and we made some new friends from church that are studying at NAFA. 2 year 1s and a year 3.
To be honest, im not a very commited church go-er and i only attend it maybe once in a month due to my busy schedule. But that particular week, what the pastor shared on stage was really relatable to me. He talked about being a spiritual olympian, whether we're running the right race and are we going to end the race right.
What he said got me thinking, "am i focusing on the right things? Is the end product what im really aiming for?" and i found the answer to be "no.". I was always procrastinating, pushing my school work back to do other things like work, play and just sitting around and not being productive all the time.
Most of the time, i just feel highly unmotivated and i have this unhealthy mindset that without motivation, i will not be able to produce a quality work. "Then i realized that if im always unmotivated and have that mindset, then when am i going to start doing my assignments?" "i'll never start!"
I started looking for a motivation. I asked myself "Why am i here?"
im here at NAFA to gain as much knowledge as i can before i go out into society to hopefully make a mark as an artist, and i should never waste my time. After i got my answer, i started using my time more wisely and im able to believe that i can complete my assignments on time.

First Creative Thinking Presentation Day

My first presentation in NAFA and I'm ashamed to say that I messed it up. As the group leader, I was suppose to initiate a meetup after school or over the weekends to finish discussing about our presentation and complete our mind map but I did not. I completely forgot about the assignment and only started with the mind map a few hours before the presentation. As I did not say anything about the presentation, my group members too, weren't prepared.
I started off the presentation apologizing to the class as my mind map was obviously done without effort and I feel that I'm wasting their time, listening to an unprepared presentation. I went on to share about my experiences with toilet paper, but when it was meng jing's turn to speak, she didn't know what to say. It was when I realized that my members are counting on me to translate for them as they are not well verse in the English language and I've failed completely as a group leader. The group that did the worst was obviously mine.

I think that the group that did the best was Adam's group. They manage to capture the class's attention completely with Adam's humour as they shared about ways of seeing The Mona Lisa. I find that humour is an important factor in making an informal type of presentation as it would make the subject less aggressive and subsequently make the topic less boring and even transit into something interesting for a mundane man with the right use of words.